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What do CARs (Controlled Activities Regulations) control?

I'll be amazed if you found this by searching for "CAR", another acronym which is easy to remember but impossible to find the relevant meaning…

What do CARs (Controlled Activities Regulations) control?

I’ll be amazed if you found this by searching for “CAR”, another acronym which is easy to remember but impossible to find the relevant meaning when searching the internet (also 140 Entries on the Acronym Finder web-page), is anyone going to read this?

No matter, I’ll answer the question.

CARs are the regulations which protect the water environment in Scotland. SEPA use them as a tool to control activities which may impact upon the Water Environment.  ‘Water’ includes groundwater and in-land surface waters.  ‘Impacts’ include influencing the chemical composition of the water e.g. introducing materials to the water such as effluent from a factory, or influencing the volume of water e.g. abstracting water from boreholes.

Controlled Activities Regulations are more formally known of as ‘The Water Environment (Controlled Activities)(Scotland) Regulations 2011, click here to find them.  Very useful information if you’re dealing with water treatment systems and/or abstracting water.

I’ll write about the General Binding Rules, Registration and Licensing parts of CAR, the 3 different levels of regulation which come in to ‘force’ depending upon the activity, in a later blog.

If you’re interested right away, click here for SEPA’s Practical Guide, a very useful document.

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